Samhain Publishing Ltd Weblog

It Can Happen To Anyone

I’m glad that the whole bushwa about plagiarism is dying down, and that black-footed ferrets got the last word via Paul Tomle.
Yet the stolen ideas fairy is still in business, prancing around and creating suspicion.

Yesterday a friend sent a slightly indignant email—she’d spotted some idea theft. She’d watched an episode of Beauty Shop (a show I didn’t know existed) and she described a scene at the end of an episode when a woman in horrible disarray rushes into the shop needing a makeover because she is supposed to be in a wedding in three hours.

My friend complained that she had just that morning read a book with the exact same scene. A woman in horrible state needs a make-over because her wedding is in a few hours. My friend asked, “Think the author saw Beauty Shop? Probably.”

My response? “Not necessarily.”

Sit down, friend, I said, and listen to my wedding hair-horror story. No don’t bother to get a beer. This won’t take long:

I lived in Boston and was getting married in Maryland, in my brother’s back yard.
When I went to the fancy-pants beauty salon where I’d made an appointment a couple of months earlier, I discovered they’d erased my name. I couldn’t get the upscale snots to take me no many how many times I said “BUT I had an appointment! I’m getting married! Today!“ I’m pretty sure they didn’t believe me. I hadn’t started crying…yet.

My brother’s shower wasn’t working right—only cold water or dribbly, I can’t remember—so I couldn’t even wash my hair. Panicked, I rushed to the White Flint Mall a little before 3 pm (I was getting married at 4:30) and located a packed Generic Haircuttery Beauty Shop. Picture me in horrible disarray, clutching the bizarre headgear I was supposed to wear, in tears because I was supposed to be in a wedding in 1.5 hours. My wedding.

They took me in, but my hair and make-up sucked and because I ended up with a perky little ponytail (no, really) I couldn’t wear the bizarre headgear hat thing. I settled on a wreath of dried flowers I ripped from the hat which I think I liked better anyway.

It was a good wedding despite the hair.

I have no huge regrets, though this is the part that burns my ass: apparently some romance or screenplay writing bitch was watching, taking notes. And since this took place in [sob] 1985, I know I was first with this one, or at least pre-_Beauty Shop_.

Okay, you can get up now,
Kate

So what have we learned today? Here’re some choices:
1. Don’t get married in my brother’s back yard.
2. Don’t assume that just because it’s sit-com whack-a-doodle dumb, it hasn’t happened in real life**
3. It’s all been done before. Everything, and usually more than twice.
4. All of the above, especially 3.

**It sure didn’t feel wacky at the time—more like a nightmare. But if I can dig up a photo of me in my less-than-perfect hairstyle I will post it and you can decide: wacky? Nightmare? Or Gidget?

UPDATE: You can see the pictures here because the picture gods at Samhain are hating me. And the scanner gods won’t even do business with the old snapshot I have of my Gone with the Wind hat I’d planned to wear and was going to inflict on show you. Now I remember what I hated most about the hair wasn’t the pony tail or the loss of my GWTW hat. It was the wings. The mid-80s mall rat wings. I didn’t want those, but boy howdy, I got them.